1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to wireless telecommunications, and more specifically, relates to a system and method for authenticating server access requests through wireless communication network.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet is becoming a ubiquitous part of modern life with wireless and remote access common in large urban areas. People can access all kinds of information by searching the Internet and can also perform many functions of their daily life. People can pay utility bills, buy groceries, and rent videos all by accessing websites through the Internet. As people access different websites for different services, they have to remember different login information and passwords. Often people choose easy identification information and passwords, so they can easily remember them. However, information that is easy to remember also tends to have a low security level. To make things worse, often users write down their login information and passwords and thus making the information easily accessible to others.
Besides not securely guarding website login information, users have also become targets of increasingly creative cyber criminals using the Internet. One example of a crime using the Internet is “phishing,” in which an authentic-looking email is sent to an unsuspected user asking the user to verify his information by clicking on a web link. The email looks authentic to the emails normally sent by another entity, such as the user's bank. After the user clicks on the web link, an authentic looking bank web page is shown to him and he is asked to log in. After the user types in his identification information and password, the information is then captured by criminals who are actually operating this authentic-like web page. The criminals can then use the captured information to access the user's bank account and transfer the money out of the user's account. Usually, the user does not learn about the problem until it is too late to stop a fraudulent transfer.
Some websites have addressed the security issue by using smart cards or hardware tokens. However, these solutions either require users to carry extra piece of hardware, or the user's computers be fitted with special hardware. These solutions generally create inconvenience to the users and increase the cost for the website operators. Therefore, it is desirous to have an apparatus and method that provides additional security to website accesses without requiring additional equipment.